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Let’s talk about, “for the kids”. One of the biggest hurdles in my transition was the belief that I had to sacrifice everything for my kids, even my happiness. This is still a widely held belief, just consider how divorce is framed even today for cishet marriages.
I very recently saw a left advice column a letter writer asking how to deal with “staying together for the kids” and not once did the columnist address the issue that maybe she didn’t need to do that. That maybe an unhappy marriage isn’t better for the kids.
That is the world that I come from. Before I realized I was trans, I tried really hard to make myself “normal”. I thought if I did all the right things, then it would happen. “Fake it till you make it”. So I faked it for a very long time including getting married and having kids.
I imagined a future for myself where I would be a different person and I just had to try hard enough to make it happen. Nothing else seemed to work but this assuredly would! Motherhood was the final boss that would finally make me a woman!
When I had kids, things actually got worse. I don’t mean mentally; I was doing much better than I had been when younger. I mean that gender got just impossibly hard to fake. The expectations for a wife and mother are intense, even with living in a somewhat liberal area.
When I had kids there was a strong push toward the natural. Woman=mother=biology. I even breastfed because everywhere told me that I was failing to give my kids the best start in life if I didn’t. I have intense chest dysphoria and that was not good for my mental health.
I reached a point when I realized that I just couldn’t fake it anymore and something had to change. I was in a stable enough mental place that I was able to realize that the problem wasn’t me not trying hard enough and no amount of faking it would make me be happy within myself.
The first step was to admit I was trans to myself and that brought with it such a flood of relief. I stopped hating myself and wishing I was someone else. I felt that would be enough. I thought transitioning, much like how divorce, was something I should put off “for the kids.”
Eventually I realized that my happiness is important and if I wasn’t miserable all the time then I was a better parent. Transitioning made me a better parent. My anxiety dropped, my emotions evened out and I was able to be more patient and present with my children.
What are we teaching our children by keeping ourselves miserable “for the kids”? We are teaching them that their needs are not as important as the societal expectations and roles that other people hold for them.
It’s hard for me to do something for my own happiness (working on that) but I would want that for my kids. I want them to feel they can strive for their own happiness and that I am here to support them in that.
